It’s All Gonna Break
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Filmmaker Stephen Chung resurrects his shelved documentary about the indie rock band Broken Social Scene with It’s All Gonna Break. In the mid-2000s, Stephen Chung filmed his friends of the Toronto-based indie rock band Broken Social Scene, as it grew from playing in basements and local music clubs to appearing on David Letterman and performing at Lollapalooza. The band turned down Stephen Chung’s documentary at the time. Still, he decided to return to the footage nearly two decades later, accompanied by modern-day interviews with band members Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Feist, Emily Haines, Amy Milan, Charles Spearin, Andrew Whiteman, Justin Peroff, John Crossingham, Evan Cranley, James Shaw, Jeffrey Remedios, and David Newfeld.
It’s All Gonna Break Synopsis
It’s All Gonna Break is a documentary about the band Broken Social Scene, filmed and directed by Stephen Chung. Chung followed the band for the first seven years of their career and assembled his first cut of a documentary back in 2007. However, the band ended up saying no and the footage sat on the shelf for nearly two decades.
Stephen Chung makes himself a character in It’s All Gonna Break as he sets out to finally achieve his dream of making a documentary about Broken Social Scene. The original footage is edited together with modern interviews, as the band tells their story of growing out of Toronto’s indie music scene, with a rotating line-up based on who was available. Broken Social Scene’s 2002 second album “You Forgot in People” started gaining traction after a raving review by the online outlet Pitchfork, resulting in Broken Social Scene beginning to receive international attention.
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My knowledge of Broken Social Scene in the early 2000s was cursory at best, peaking with Bruce McDonald’s 2010 concert film/romantic drama This Movie is Broken. In fact, I was more familiar with the acts that spawned off from Broken Social Scene, such as female vocalist Feist starting a solo career and band members Emily Haines and James Shaw founding Metric, a band that I was (and am) a big fan of. As such, It’s All Gonna Break is not really a film for me, as it is a documentary meant for those who experienced Broken Social Scene since they were the house band of the, now closed down, Toronto rock club Ted’s Wrecking Yard.
The lasting impact Broken Social Scene is undeniable, even after It’s All Gonna Break climatic moment of the band playing at the 2006 Lollapalooza, notable for the fact that they were denied an encore by the management of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Arguably, Broken Social Scene’s most timeless song is the Emily Haines sung ballad “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” from their breakthrough album “You Forgot in People.” I’m still amazed that the song was not only covered last year for the soundtrack of the film I Saw the TV Glow, but played a pivotal role in the film’s ending.
Even if you were not a fan of Broken Social Scene, It’s All Gonna Break also services as a time capsule of the early-mid 2000s indie rock scene. In addition to the aforementioned Ted’s Wrecking Yard, which closed in 2001, the film also features venues such as The Rivoli and praise of the old Queen Street scene. While the film as a whole is ultimately a two-decades-later salvage job by director Stephen Chung, It’s All Gonna Break should still satisfy fans who followed Broken Social Scene since the beginning.
Trailer for It’s All Gonna Break
